The Shadow and Night (14 page)

“Vero. It's short for Verofaza. I hadn't realized till I met him that on Ancient Earth men's names can end in
A.
‘Verofaza Laertes Enand, sentinel' is how he introduces himself. Yes, he was one of a number of surprises yesterday.”

“I can guess one of the others,” she answered, a hint of regret darkening her soft voice.

“Yes, Isabella. My parents told me when I got back. I'm still thinking that one over, but what with Vero and the service today, I'm afraid I haven't really digested it. Six months' wait before approval.”

Merral looked at her, realizing that she was revealing no emotion in her expression.
She wouldn't here, and not so soon.
It would take something like an hour's walk in the park to find out what she really thought.

Then she spoke again, her voice businesslike. “If then. But I understand. Do you have any first reactions?”

“Well . . . actually, thinking about yesterday, Vero was the second of three surprises. We were third. The first was fairly reliable news that I am going to be given a tropics posting.” He watched her face as he said it, but other than the faintest lifting of a fine dark eyebrow, she kept any feelings hidden.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

She knows me so well.
“It's a challenge. Very demanding and horribly hot, especially if it's Umbaga or Faraketha. Oh, I haven't really thought about that news either. But it does seem that my path may be away from Ynysmant before long.”

Isabella said nothing immediately but nodded gently. When she did speak it was in a voice that he could barely hear over the chatter in the hall. “Our parents seem to have assumed that this sort of thing might happen.” Isabella joined her delicate fingers together in front of her mouth. She might have nodded, but if so it was so faintly that Merral couldn't be sure whether she had.

“We will talk more of it another time,” he added, thinking,
Isabella, it's so hard to read your emotions even though I know you very well. It's as if I have to tune my senses to maximum to pick up the signals you give out.

She smiled delicately. “Yes, I'm sure we will. And I'd like to met Vero if I can.”

“Of course. He wants to meet you. But any particular reason why?”

There was a moment's hesitation. “I have a certain professional curiosity, Merral. There is a school of thought that says that Ancient Earthers and Made Worlders have differing psychologies. Actually everyone agrees on that—it's just how far the differences go. Made Worlders are more assertive and outgoing but at the same time less secure. Partly that is society, partly it is environment.”

“I've heard that, but you aren't going to profile him here?”

“No! Of course not!” She laughed. “But it would be nice to talk to him.”

“Well, come on, I'll introduce you.”

They walked to where Vero was talking with a young man. At a suitable point Merral made the introductions, to which Vero responded with the utmost formality and a slight bow. Isabella smiled at him. “I hadn't realized Ancient Earth had so much civility.”

Vero smiled shyly at her. “It hasn't really, but training instilled in us the idea that in a strange culture it is better to be overformal than the opposite.”

“And we are a strange culture?”

Vero gave an oblique grin to Merral. “No, madam, not entirely.”

They all laughed, and Isabella turned to Vero. “Have you found Nativity here as you expected it to be?”

Vero paused, thinking through the answer. “I can answer both yes and no. I had assumed it would be like home and in some ways it is like that. But there are differences. For example, with us there is silence on Nativity Morn until we are assembled. And there are other things.”

As he went on and listed differences, Merral found himself standing back and treating the conversation as if he were a spectator.
It is interesting how Isabella is able to draw out of Vero what she wants.
He watched how she kept her intent, almond-shaped eyes on him and how she encouraged him with the slightest movements of her head.

Merral's thoughts were interrupted by a member of the Team-Ball squad he played for who wanted to pass on news of a match that he had missed. When they parted after ten minutes or so, Merral realized that the hall was now nearly empty. He walked over to where Isabella and Vero were still deep in conversation.

“Sorry to interrupt, but, Vero, we must go.”

“You are quite right.” He gave a little bow. “Isabella, I hope we meet again.”

“And I too. Merral, you will be in touch soon?”

“Of course.”

As Merral and Vero walked down from the hall in silence, Merral felt that his new friend seemed deep in thought.

“You had a good discussion with Isabella?” he asked.

“Yes. I think, though, she found out more about me than I did about her.”

“Well observed. She is both an acute observer of others and a private person herself.”

“I can believe that. A striking face—but you know that. Her family isn't recently from Earth? I mean in the last five generations?”

“No, Farholme for four generations on both sides. Antakaly before that on her father's side, I think; Marant on her mother's. Why do you ask?”

“Because out on the worlds, most racial genes have been fairly well diluted and yet, at a glance, she appears to have fairly pure Chinese features. It's more typical of Earth. Did you know that?”

“That on Ancient Earth there had been much less intermarriage across the races? Yes, I'd heard that. I mean, you are much darker than anyone I know on Farholme.”

Vero raised an eyebrow in amused acknowledgement. “It has been pointed out. Well, it removes the temptation to go disguised among you. Anyway, Isabella asked some penetrating questions.”

“She would do that. And what was the hardest she gave you?”

Vero shook his head gently. “Ah, you have something in common. She asked whether I had found what I came for.”

Merral looked sideways at his companion. “To which you said . . . ?”

“To which I said . . . ‘No, and I'm no longer sure what I'm looking for.' ”

“That sounds bad.”

“Perhaps. But then if it isn't here, then not to find it is surely no bad thing.”

“I suppose not.”

“I am on the point of coming to a decision. But I need to think more about it. I will talk more about this to you later.”

They strode on and Merral caught his companion glancing up at the sun.

“You look puzzled, Vero,” he said.

“Disoriented. It's just slightly wrong; it's too red.”

“Yes, our sun is slightly cooler than Sol. You'll adjust.”

“Maybe. Do you ever call it ‘Alahir'?”

“As in ‘I see Alahir is setting'?” Merral laughed. “Hardly. In formal astronomy, maybe, but to us it's just the sun. Makes sense to me.”

Vero shrugged. “Yes, it makes sense. We never call our sun ‘Sol,' except under the same circumstances. But I find it hard. I suppose it is as if you were a child and your mother died and your father married again. You might have a hesitation about calling the new woman ‘Mother.' ”

Merral felt that the observation revealed how deeply Vero felt that he was away from home.

They walked down the west steps and Merral asked his guest whether he had appreciated the service.

Vero paused. “Yes, it was very good.”

“I vaguely noted that you were paying careful attention to what was going on.”

“Yes. Well, I suppose I had thought that if there was anything untoward, it would show itself here.”

“And it didn't?”

Vero seemed to bite his lip. “I saw, heard, and felt nothing to raise an alarm. It was reverent, orthodox, and all the rest. As you would expect.”

“You seem almost disappointed.”

He shook his head. “No, on the contrary, I suppose I am relieved. But I am puzzled. Anyway, I'll discuss that later.” He paused. “Incidentally, the choir was very good. I'm gifted—if that is the word—with perfect pitch, and a failure to hit the right note hurts. But it was painless on that account. A credit to Farholme.”

“I'll pass it on. Now we'd better hurry or we will be late for the meal.”

Much of the rest of the day was spent in festivities and eating. There was an apparently endless round of visits of friends, relatives, and innumerable children, and numerous rounds of food and drink. Then there was the time of giving presents. Merral gave his father a new map and his mother a brooch and received sweets and a scarf in return. There were any number of family stories, and presumably because of Vero, almost any incident even vaguely concerned with Ancient Earth that had happened in the last five generations was brought up. Surprisingly, the one everyone found funniest was that of his father's Great-Aunt Margarita, much given to precise and painstaking management of every detail of her affairs, who at a very advanced age had finally managed to travel to see her family on one of the worlds on the other side of the Assembly. On the way back she had found the strain too much and had gone Home to the Lord without warning. But as she had been such a quiet passenger and much given to sleeping, it was many hours before anybody noticed she had stopped breathing, with the result that the death certificate had written on it under “Location” the words,
Not known within fifty light-years.

Then there were games, including a long and noisy one called Cross the Assembly. Vero revealed, with a certain awkwardness, that when he played it on Earth, everybody hated getting the Farholme card because you could never get to anywhere from it and it was so far from a decent Gate node. The news that, even in games, Farholme had a reputation as Worlds' End was greeted with a great deal of amusement.

Sometime about nine Merral found himself yawning. He felt he had not fully recovered from his long and tiring northern trip and, making apologies, he went upstairs to his room. As he began to undress he put his diary on the table and noted that a nonurgent text message had been transmitted an hour ago. He flicked it on and read the message as it slid across the screen.

Merral,

The Rechereg choral went fine. I hope you enjoy the attached performance. I did use Miranda Cline after all.

Give my love to your family,

Happy Nativity,

Barrand Antalfer

There was a sound file attached, and switching it through the room speakers, Merral began to play it as he rinsed his face in the basin and put on his night-suit. He was about to switch it off when there was a tap at the door.

It was Vero. “Not asleep then? Good. Look, sorry to interrupt, but I was going to tell you that I have decided to leave tomorrow.” He paused. “Wait—I know this music.” He started waving his fingers slowly in time to it, his face a study in concentration. Suddenly his face acquired a look of recognition. “Of course! Rechereg's
Choral Variations on an Old Carol.
The old carol being the truly ancient ‘Child of Mary, Newly Born.' Very fine. Where did you get the recording?”

Merral, his tiredness gone, sat on his bed and gestured to the chair opposite. “Please. My uncle up at the Forward Colony at Herrandown sent it to me today. He did it himself.”

Vero nodded appreciatively. “A good job. Re-createds?”

“'Fraid so. They can barely make a string quartet up there. Some good names. Shall I play it back from the beginning?”

“No, tempting though it is. But I wouldn't mind a copy.”

“No problem. There are all the details on the file.”

Merral switched the music off and ordered the file to be copied.

“Thanks,” said Vero. He looked around the room and gestured to a small glass egg perched on a stand on the table. “A personal creation of yours?”

“Yes,” Merral said. “It's a tree.”

Vero stared at him. “I've known aquaria, fantasy cities, snowscapes, but a single tree?”

Merral gestured at it. “It's unique. I call it a castle tree. There's a spare pair of glasses there. Put them on and let me show you.”

Merral found his imaging glasses on the shelf above his bed and put them on. “Log on to castle tree; real time,” he ordered, and in seconds the darkness of the lenses cleared, and Merral saw himself near the top of a low hill. The sky above was a brilliant pale blue, and all around, stretching as far as he could see, lay long, dry, brown grass buffeted under the force of a wind he could neither feel nor hear. At his feet was a bare stone surface etched with the words
Castle Tree; Merral Stefan D'Avanos; Farholme. Simulation 4.2b. Elapsed Real Time: 26401.3 hours. Elapsed Simulated Time: 52021.2 years.

A soft, glistening light at his left showed him that Vero had joined him.

“I see no tree.” Merral found the room acoustic of Vero's voice strangely inappropriate with the open scene around him.

“Lock your position with me.”

Merral touched the glasses frame and accelerated forward, flying over the blur of the grass toward the crest of the hill. He stopped dead at the summit and heard a gasp from beside him.

Perhaps a kilometer away from him a mass, like some vast broad tower, rose up into the sky. It was pale gray and speckled with green and the summit was strangely serrated as if made up of a thousand spires.

“What is it?” Vero said, his voice ringing with incredulity. “A building? It's enormous.”

“It's a tree. But I felt it looked like a castle; hence the name. Do you think it looks like a castle?”

“I have seen the ruins of castles, but they were never this size. Yes, the shape is right. But a tree?”

Merral touched the frame of the glasses again and he and Vero flew onward over the featureless grass. As they did, the awesome size of the tree became more apparent. He could soon begin to make out the great spreading branches of greenery extending from the uneven wall of silvery bark.